


Future Looks Good

by Little_Firestar84



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, One Shot, Post-Season/Series 02, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 08:23:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15553614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Firestar84/pseuds/Little_Firestar84
Summary: "Her family had caused this whole mess- culminating in Rufus’ death. It was up to her to fix things, no matter what. "Lucy takes things in her own hands to stop their enemies- and saving their friends.





	Future Looks Good

The lifeboat from the future was a whole other thing – it wasn’t just the look, it was also how easier it was to pilot. Even with her little knowledge, Lucy soon discovered that she could have pulled it off. 

Destroying Rittenhouse, once and for all. Alone. As it was supposed to. Her burden. 

She sneaked out, night after night, hoping that no one would see her – that Future Lucy wouldn’t say a word. She was doing something stupid, something that she felt wasn’t like her, but, in her mind, she didn’t have any other option. 

Her family had caused this whole mess- culminating in Rufus’ death. It was up to her to fix things, no matter what. 

The Lifeboat hummed in the dead of night, as lights flickered all around her, as in an eerie fairy tale – further indication of how much things would have changed in a matter of few years. 

From the window, she saw Wyatt and older versions of themselves, Flynn and Mason looking in her general direction, screaming at her – Wyatt, as white as a ghost, was visibly sweating, and kept hitting the lifeboat with a wrench, as it could have changed something. He wasn’t just mad – he was a possessed man, desperate, on the verge of losing yet again who he loved more than his own life. 

Sobbing, with her heart as heavy as iron, she put her palm on the cold glassy window of the time machine. She was killing them, Lucy knew it. She understood it better than what they thought. But it was the only thing to do. It was her duty. 

Besides, if her plan was going to work, it wouldn’t have mattered any way. They would have never remembered her. 

It was for the better. 

She truly believed it. 

Before coming back to the 1010, Lucy took spent time in the recent past. She didn’t need to get accustomed of the idea of losing everything she had cared for, everything she had fought for – her family, Amy, Wyatt – but she needed to make sure she had it right. If she was just a few weeks off, Nicholas would still have written his manifesto, resulting in the birth of Rittenhouse. He needed to die – of that much she was sure – but she needed to know each and every of his moves. 

She got back to her roots, focusing her whole being on his history. Part of her heart felt suddenly light again, as her mind was brought back to that familiar place she had visited so many times since she was younger. 

She loved history, and being an historian, it was what she was born for, no matter what Rittenhouse said, or how they played their cards. 

One day, after over six months on the run from her friends, and from her enemies as well, she closed her books, and took a big breath as she went to meet her eventual fate. 

Her eyes were as cold as a winter night when she fired a bullet at Nicholas, outside his home, few weeks before he could start a chain of events that would result in everything that had gone wrong in her life. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to no one in particular, as she stood before him. He was on the cold ground, blood oozing from a single bullet wound. His blue lips were slightly parted, and he was looking at her as begging to be saved – or maybe, just maybe, he was looking for an answer. 

She waited for her great-grandfather to take his last breath, then, delicately, she closed his eyes herself. Only then Lucy collapsed on her knee, and started sobbing, desperate, as hit by the enormity of what she had just done. 

It wasn’t just the life she had taken – it was knowing that she had just lost. Everything. Everyone. 

She kept vigil over his remains until the first rays of the sun gently kissed her cheek, when cold shivers were finally running through her whole body, as millions of small nails stuck into her frail body. She waited for nothingness to finally engulf her, disappear into the ether just like her sister, but the hours passed, and nothing happened. 

She checked Nicholas’ pulse, tentatively, scared that she hadn’t made it – that, somehow, he was still alive, after all – but he was just like the last time she had changed, a lifeless sack of dead meat on the ground, swallowed by his own blood. 

She heard a scream in the distance, and when she turned, Lucy saw a young woman – a little more than a child – covering her mouth, as to mouth the scream of primordial horror leaving her lungs. Quickly, the time-traveller stood, and run, frantically, back where she had come from. 

She needed to leave the crime scene behind- but mostly, she needed answers, answers that only the future could provide. 

It was coming undone. _It_ had come undone. She hadn’t been wrong in her calculations. Nicholas had died before signing the manifesto, and his life’s work had come to an end, putting a stop to what would have eventually became known as Rittenhouse.Her family wasn’t there, cut out of history long before she would be born, but the scientist looked with both utter fascination and fear at the knowledge that she had been cut off from history. 

She had no reason to be alive –and yet… here she was, with a fresh start, a new outlook on life and plenty of time to do whatever she wanted – anything she had ever dreamt of. And she had the _means_ to. It wasn’t just the Lifeboat- that, she had well hidden it once she had come back to “her” present, where she knew no one would have looked for her. She had disabled all file-safe protocols, making sure that no one would find the time machine and use it for their nefarious ends. 

But… she knew history, and yes, it was kind of wrong to play “insider-trader” to make some money, but how else was she supposed to live? She didn’t exist, after all – her mother had been erased the moment Lucy had hit the trigger of her gun, killing their common ancestors. Lucy Preston wasn’t just a ghost – she was someone who hadn’t lived in the world, who has never been born.

She had picked up a few tricks, made sure that she would still get money in the future, betting and investing in the past where she knew she would have profited a little. She built an history of her family, built a new identity for herself, all the while remaining Lucy Preston.After having checked out _almost_ all her friends, making sure they were all right (Rufus was alive and a programmer – just like his fiancée, Jiya - for a big company in Silicon Valley, Mason worked at MIT, agent Christopher was married with Michelle and together they had two children, Flynn hadn’t lost his family), she even managed to live to her dream, although smaller than what she used to.

She still used to teach- but instead of aprestigious university, it was just a small high school, right in the middle of nowhere. She had felt a little depressed on the first day, knowing what a difference it would have made, well aware that the rather insignificant position meant little to no controls, and yet, she had soon realisedhow wrong she had been –she _loved_ teaching to a younger audience, being there to open their minds and their eyes up and show them the beauty and the truth of the world, helping them, maybe, finding their own way out there in the big, bad universe.

She was still Lucy. And yet, she wasn’t.

And she loved it. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

She had been back for over two years when she finally decided to take a vacation and try to enjoy herself. Her new best friend, Serena, a fellow teacher – and one who bore a scary resemblance to Amy \- had lectured her after Lucy had declined the umpteenth date. He had been a single father, young, divorced and _decent,_ not a guy who just wanted to get back on the saddle. He had noticed, he had admitted, Lucy right on his son’s first day at the new school, and she had caught his attention. She had been flattered – any woman would, after all – but she had gently declined, unnerving Serena to no limits. 

Between sobs that weren’t’ really like her, andswallowing in suppressed emotions she had tried to put a lock on, Lucy narrated a sweetened version of her love story with Wyatt – working on the same projects, but not really liking each other despite the attraction, an attraction that had quickly developed, for her, in _love_. But, for the longest time, Wyatt had been blind to her sweet words and her tender gaze, his heart burned by the disappearance of his wife, Jessica.

Jessica- the same woman who had suddenly returned, right when Wyatt had finally admitted that he, too, loved Lucy.

Serena had hugged her, talked her, and, together, they had booked a vacation, Lucy needed the space and the time, she said, and she needed to get herself back.Lucy accepted, and it was with an heavy heart, but a renovated hope, that she packed her bag and went to the Hawaii for what were supposed to be the sweetest two weeks of her life. 

Only, it really didn’t worked out that way.

She was sitting on the edge of the Olympic pool, her body clad in a colourful, tropical bikini, her eyes hidden by huge sunglasses and an even huger hat, reading an history novel when she was splashed by water. She gasped, and looked at the book, hoping that it wasn’t ruined. She took of her glasses, and fiery like a lion, she put her hands on her hips, looking at the mischievous creature responsible for what had happened. 

A small boy- not older than five – was playing in front of her, in the pool, a rubber duck in his hands, his tiny body engulfed in the ugliest life-ring she had ever seen. He was looking at her behind thick lashes- a waste on a boy – his dark blonde hair making him look like a cherub ( or her ex). He was sorry, but not really – she could see it in his mischievous grin, the way he was biting his lips.

“So, young man, where are your parents? I think we may need to exchange a few words….”

He didn’t answer, just kept grinning like the cat who got the canary, and Lucy smiled, shaking her head, amused, when suddenly her heart sank, as she heard his voice, that voice she had hoped – dreaded – to hear.

“Ted! What do you think you are doing!”She closed her eyes, as willing the voice away, and swallowed, hard. Tentatively, her heart on her ears, she turned,and she saw him, just like the last time she had seen him – just a little older, and yet… freer (and in a swimsuit). “I’m sorry – I hope he didn’t disturb you?” He asked.

Lucy shook her fighting back tears. Since coming back in her own time over two years before, Wyatt wasthe one she hadn’t dared to see, to check on. But yet, somehow, he had found his way to her. She blushed, lowering her eyes a little, as she was being shy, and he smiled – a smile so strong and bright, so powerful, she could hear it in his voice. 

She had missed him. Missed him so much and yet, now that he was right before her, she was realising just how much she did. More than life. More than air. More than water. 

Her eyes went to his left hand, where she noted the clearly missing ring – not that it meant anything - maybe he and Jessica were just together and not married. Maybe he had lost his ring. Maybe he wasn’t used to wear it. 

Maybe, maybe, just maybe…

“I’m sorry for your book,” he chuckled, clearly not sorry at all. “Ted’s a bit of a daredevil. I hope it wasn’t too important…”

“It wasn’t.” She shook her head, biting her lips. “Just a book, like a million others.”

“Still,” Wyatt sighed, clearing his voice a little, a bit uncomfortable, but clearly amused, if the tone of his voice meant anything – and she knew him, like no one else. “It’s a bit of a shame. Reading is important, I was told. I think I should make it up to you? Maybe dinner?” 

“Not sure your wife will be too happy….” Lucy chuckled, and Wyatt blushed, scratching the back of his neck. 

“No wife- not after the divorce, at least. And no girlfriend either. Or Boyfriend. Or husband. In short, I’m a single father trying to make it work rising a kid on my own and military life.”

“Army?” She fake-guessed, already knowing the answer- unless he was anything like _her_ Wyatt.

“Yeah. How did you guess?” He asked, squeezing his eyes so much they were almost closed.

“I had a friend there,” she explained, blushing, suddenly aware of how close he was – and how little fabric was covering that body she got to enjoy, to discover only once. “You have his demeanour.” 

“So….” He chuckled a little, Ted giggling hiding behind his back, playing as he had known Lucy all along. “That dinner? He ruined your book. I really want to make it up to you. That – and I need to talk with an adult, one who doesn’t know everything there is to know about the fine art of diaper chancing.” He paused, suddenly realising that he had, maybe, talked too much. “Please tell me you’re not a mum. Or married. That’d be awkward.”

She shook her head, blushing a little, wondering if offering her hand to shake – it was weird. She had known Wyatt for years, and yet, here she was, contemplating how introducing herself to a version of him who didn’t know about her love – of what she had scarified for their friends. 

“I’m Lucy,” She cleared her voice, offering him her bracelets-clad hand to him. “Lucy Preston.”

“Wyatt- Logan. It’s the surname. Logan, I mean.” He stuttered a little, as he was a child, as he was being unsure, or didn’t know how to act around a woman. “Let me try again: I’m Wyatt Logan, hi. Would you like to have dinner with me?”

“Yes,” she breathed, looking into his eyes, and seeing the past, and the future they were going to have together, a life that she had only dared to dream, but that was being laid bare right before her in this very moment. “Yes, I’d really like to."


End file.
